it be a good idea to keep a man stationed at each one of them?"

"You're talking sense," Cullison approved. "Sam, ride back and get in
touch with Curly. Tell him to do that. And rouse the whole country over
the wire. We'll run him down and feed him to the coyotes."

CHAPTER XIX

A GOOD SAMARITAN

Fendrick had told the exact truth. After leaving him Kate had ridden
forward to the canyon and entered it. She did not mean to go much farther,
but she took her time. More than once she slipped from under a fold of her
waist a letter and reread sentences of it. Whenever she did this her eyes
smiled. For it was a love letter from Curly, the first she had ever had.
It had been lying on the inner edge of the threshold of her bedroom door
that morning when she got up, and she knew that her lover had risen early
to put it there unnoticed.

They were to be married soon. Curly had wished to wait till after his
trial, but she had overruled him. Both her father and Sam had sided with
her, for she had made them both see what an advantage it would be with a
jury for Flandrau to have his bride sitting beside him in the courtroom.

Faintly there came to her a wind-swept sound. She pulled up and waited,
but no repetition of it reached her ears. But before her pony had moved a
dozen steps she stopped him again. This time she was almost sure of a far
cry, and after it the bark of a revolver.

With the touch of a rein she guided her horse toward the sound. It might
mean nothing. On the other hand it might be a call for help. Her shout
brought an answer which guided her to the edge of a prospect hole. In the
darkness she made out an indistinct figure.

"Water," a husky voice demanded.

She got her canteen from the saddle and dropped it to him. The man glued
his lips to the mouth as if he could never get enough.

"For God's sake get me out of here," he pleaded piteously.

"How long have you been there?"

"Two days. I fell in at night whilst I was cutting acrost country."

Kate fastened her rope to the horn of the saddle, tightened the cinch
carefully, and dropped the other end to him. She swung to the back of the
horse and braced herself by resting her full weight on the farther
stirrup.

"Now," she told him.

The imprisoned man tried to pull himself up, bracing his feet against the
rough projections of the rock wall to help him. But he could not manage
the climb. At last he gave it up with an oath.

"We'll try another